How many domains do you own?

[woopwoop]

I was going to use "Portfolio size?" as the subject, but thought twice.

If you're like me you have a bunch of names that you know have value (your real portfolio) and then a bunch of names you gathered over time not really knowing why (maybe a good idea for a site, investment, multiple possible end users...)

I'll try and share and comment about my rationale for reducing the 'portfolio' and shifting between (g)tlds and would be interesting to see if others have made any shifts too.

At my peak I had over 400 .co.uks and maybe 250 .coms (maybe 1 .org, 1 .us, 1 .net and 8 .org.uks).

Here's where I stand now:
.co.uk 85
.com 34
.us 1
.nyc 118

Of the .co.uks I'll always keep about 25 of them for my sites/projects/emails etc.) but will sell off or let drop the other 60.

I guess my money switched into the .NYCs and despite flipping one recently for $1k, I think that this will be a medium term hold for most of them. I bought a couple in the first wave of premium auctions and total in is about $7k.

Here's what I learnt and probably should have known... you can negotiate with registrars on renewal fees!

I'm a Nom member and so get the cheapest prices for uk's, but the .nycs floor price seemed to be $22 in Oct '14. Now renewals are about to happen, the registrars have generally pushed the price up to $30 and above!

So I approached a few registrars about transferring 100+ names to them and two dropped the price so I think they might be making a loss in the first year - I got a price of $17.99. iF i'd have let them renew with the old registrar I'd have paid an extra $12 each for over a hundred names.

Anyways would be interesting to hear other people's stories.

 

[ian]

ermmmm, around 5 pairs at the moment, plus a number of unrelated business domains. I have a very specific strategy.

 

[Adam H]

Around 450 I think, about 250 I throw up for sale and the rest are what I hang on to for the time being or are being used.

Not into many TLD's so they are spread between .com, .co and more recently since joining AD .co.uk/.uk

Very much the bottom feeder of the forum in the UK market though, not being a catcher I pick up the scraps I like the sound of or know i can shift/develop in some form or another.

 

[accelerator]

Approximately 175 and being VERY selective in what I buy now.

 

[woopwoop]

@Ian - Your 5 pairs meaning .co.uk/.uk? Only ccTLD?

@Adam - How are the .co's working out? Do you have many? I wonder if there is a strong effect on that market because of the new gTLDs (either a helping or hurting effect).

@Accelerator - I have stopped buying altogether. Never thought I'd say it and maybe a name will bring me out of retirement, but I see there's money elsewhere and personally owning a big portfolio that I didn't have a specific plan for, ended up being a crutch. I feel a lot more focused now.

Despite my gTLD plan it does feel good to generally downsize and let a lot drop.

Occasionally I'll check to see if people registered my drops and it's probably around a 50% register rate.

A few years ago I told myself that I must only register a name if I was going to at least build something on it to at least pay renewals. But life gets busy.

At my peak of 6-700 names I wouldn't think too much about the renewal costs and yet they were silently hurting profits - Almost like a gambler focusing on their big wins and forgetting about their losses!

As a side, if I've also used a few different accounting software like Intuit and BYOB (Mac) - since January, I've been using WaveApps and can highly recommend it. I use it with US accounts but expect it will work well in the UK. It's free but has paid credit card and payroll addons. It provides online accounts, transaction sorting, invoicing - really helpful and the charts show very clearly where money is coming in from and where it's being hemorrhaged.

 

[accelerator]

Easy to buy, hard to sell. Focus is everything.

 

[spiderspider]

I'm down to about 45 that are currently active (not suspended). Majority are .co.uk with maybe 7 .com

We're only focusing on .com and .co.uk, and only buying for our own needs, and mainly buying domains dropped by our competitors (or when they go bust). Great way to find out what they did different to us.

 

[Skinner]

I think I hit 500 owned myself, another 200 in joint ownership. Now I'm down to about 400 total. Of that only about 10 are .org.uk, none are .me.uk, about 25 are .uk only, about 20 are .co.uk only.

.com's about 50, .tel 1. I did own steve.co and morley.co but dropped them both which may have been a mistake. I dropped all the .TV, all the .ME and others, all dropped now.

 

[Adam H]

@Adam - How are the .co's working out? Do you have many? I wonder if there is a strong effect on that market because of the new gTLDs (either a helping or hurting effect).

I actually really like .co's and i have no idea why, I see them as the poor man's Tech type .io ( for the first year anyway ).

Ive only got about 20 or 30 .co's i think, ive had offers on 5 of them of $300 - $700 and between. Declined all offers but only because im not in a position where i need to sell them so quite happy to hold them for a while.

I purchased my first ( and probably only ) .to the other week, Anyone else had a punt at .to's ?

 

[looks]

We are close to 6000 .co.uk names. It's a lot of stock to hold but it more than pays for itself. Investing in more premium names at the moment and looking at names to develop.

Stacey

 

[Adam H]

We are close to 6000 .co.uk names. It's a lot of stock to hold but it more than pays for itself. Investing in more premium names at the moment and looking at names to develop.

Stacey

Stacy do you actively pitch to potential buyers ? I don't have loads of domains but im not a domainer either, I rarely make and effort to shift them. My aim is to perhaps make 1 sale a year at xxxx range and im happy.

Id find it interesting to know what kind of portfolio like that takes to manage or turn a profit comfortably. ( obviously not looking for specifics )

 

[WalkinDude]

At peak 1000 domains. I don't regret owning so many but it wasn't profitable but seems to be a rights of passage thing before you can narrow it down to what truly reflects your domaining approach. Down to under 100 now. And soon to be down to under 50. Ideally I wouldn't want more than about 15 now which is what I'm aiming for. I think how many profitable websites even if they only make quids per year is far more important stat than how many domains you own.

I can't help but thinking the registrars have spent the last 20 years laughing their faces off at all this domain speculation. You'll note no website of note provides any stats for money's invested in domains vs returns on sales of domains or perhaps a better metric. The figures would probably be horrific.

 

[accelerator]

I can't help but thinking the registrars have spent the last 20 years laughing their faces off at all this domain speculation. You'll note no website of note provides any stats for money's invested in domains vs returns on sales of domains or perhaps a better metric. The figures would probably be horrific.

The people who made most money from the gold rush were those that sold the shovels.

 

[looks]

At peak 1000 domains. I don't regret owning so many but it wasn't profitable but seems to be a rights of passage thing before you can narrow it down to what truly reflects your domaining approach. Down to under 100 now. And soon to be down to under 50. Ideally I wouldn't want more than about 15 now which is what I'm aiming for. I think how many profitable websites even if they only make quids per year is far more important stat than how many domains you own.

I can't help but thinking the registrars have spent the last 20 years laughing their faces off at all this domain speculation. You'll note no website of note provides any stats for money's invested in domains vs returns on sales of domains or perhaps a better metric. The figures would probably be horrific.

To be honest, if you couldn't make a profit from 1000 domain names, you must have bought a load of tosh . It's only like £3k a year in renewals.

We have been in domain names full time since 2005 i think and it has been very kind to us.

 

[woopwoop]

For me I'd sell 1-3 names a year for x,xxx and that would pay my holding + some, and that made me think the whole thing was worth it.

@Looks, is that pretty much your model (just sell more or at higher prices) or do you have a strategy where each domain resolves to a:

• for sale page
• parking page with PPC LINKS
• parking page with affiliate links
• minisite with PPC/affiliate links
• bigger than minisite development
• something else

Personally the types of domains I was holding meant that I was too distracted to have a targeted plan. I couldn't handle 6000, although if there's a system that's working then it may be best you don't tell us

 

[stellar73]

184 - mostly co.uk, a few .com, some .uk

Need to do some pruning!

 

[AssetDomains]

I'm upto about 400 names total mostly .uk of some variant. have maybe 15-20 old tlds and around the same newtlds.
I'm dropping lots of uk domains each month though trying to get down to about 50 - 60 eventually.
I used to have a few .co's even sold one on sedo for xxxx I'm looking to try and develop now though rather than buying to sell.

 

[Brassneck]

At peak 1000 domains. I don't regret owning so many but it wasn't profitable but seems to be a rights of passage thing before you can narrow it down to what truly reflects your domaining approach. Down to under 100 now. And soon to be down to under 50. Ideally I wouldn't want more than about 15 now which is what I'm aiming for. I think how many profitable websites even if they only make quids per year is far more important stat than how many domains you own.

I can't help but thinking the registrars have spent the last 20 years laughing their faces off at all this domain speculation. You'll note no website of note provides any stats for money's invested in domains vs returns on sales of domains or perhaps a better metric. The figures would probably be horrific.

Agree with most of that. Fun while it lasted, but really as you say the people who made most out of this are the registrars and Nominet and that is getting a lot more difficult for them also. I've also realised that nobody is interested in buying my names any longer (gone from annual sales of £50k per year several years ago to hardly £1k with similar quality). Unlikely to renew any that don't pay their way in parking or have been developed in some way. So having peaked at about 4,500 will be soon down to a rump of about 500.

Stephen.

 

[Murray]

I've also realised that nobody is interested in buying my names any longer (gone from annual sales of £50k per year several years ago to hardly £1k with similar quality)..

The 50k is pretty impressive

Would you you failed to change with the industry? if you've gone down to making 1/50th of what you were (not trying to be rude with that question)

 

[Brassneck]

The 50k is pretty impressive

Would you you failed to change with the industry? if you've gone down to making 1/50th of what you were (not trying to be rude with that question)

In the beginning I hand regged expired traffic domains. Then did the same when I started drop catching as generics were too competitive - a few tags hoovered up most of the best ones including the prenoms. I did rent some better drop catching set ups and started to get generics also and it was very easy to flip them on here - often getting £50 a go and I was never as expensive as others. All this worked well until about 4 years ago and I gave up drop catching about 2 years ago.

I guess I could have adapted in recent years but I don't have the skills to write my own scripts and the returns on rented scripts are just too minimal to be worth all the hours. Things change quickly so I am just pleased to have stumbled upon some ways of making some good income in the past for relatively little effort.